Highly sensitive and selective acetone sensor based on C-doped WO3 for potential diagnosis of diabetes mellitus

Acetone in the human breath is a crucial biomarker for the clinical diagnosis of diabetes in a noninvasive manner. Traditional methods of breath analysis have some major technical problems and limitations. Herein, C-doped WO3 materials are synthesized via a facile cotton fiber-templating route following by calcination. The phase and morphology of the resulting material were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectra and high resolution transmission electron microscopies (HRTEM). The as-fabricated sensors based on C-doped WO3 materials show fast response and recovery toward acetone gas down to 0.2 ppm with a well-defined relationship between the concentration and detection response at an operating temperature of 300 degrees C. Upon exposure to methanol, ethanol and NH3, only slight responses were observed at the same temperature, indicating an excellent selectivity. Furthermore, healthy persons (<0.9 ppm) and diabetic patients (>1.8 ppm) can be distinguished by an obvious gap in sensor response even at 95% relative humidity. The results suggest that the synthesized C-doped WO3 could not only be used as an effective acetone detecting material but offer a cost-effective alternative to more bulky systems for noninvasive diagnosis of diabetes. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.